Odyssey system overview

The spectacular growth of cellular telephone networks has proven the ubiquitous demand for personal communications. Large regions of the world are too sparsely populated to be economically served by terrestrial cellular communications and geography frequently prohibits the installation of terrestrial networks. Furthermore, there are also many regions of the world which lack a basic telecommunications infrastructure, whether wireline or wireless. The Odyssey System is an economical approach for providing high quality, wireless, communications services worldwide via satellites. A constellation of 12 satellites will be orbited in three planes, each inclined at fifty degrees, at an altitude of 10,354 km (5591 nautical miles) to provide seamless coverage of the globe. The Odyssey orbit lends itself to high line-of-sight elevation angles that minimize obstructions by terrain, trees and buildings. Each satellite generates a multibeam antenna pattern that divides its coverage area into a set of contiguous cells. The communications system architecture employs spread spectrum CDMA on both the uplinks and the downlinks which optimize the use of the mobile link spectrum. Signal processing is accomplished on the ground at the satellites' earth stations. The satellites' "bent pipe" transponders simplify the space segment design and provide the flexibility to exploit future enhancements in vocoder and waveform technologies. The ground network will employ a minimum of earth stations worldwide connected via leased lines. Calls to and from the Odyssey handsets will be routed globally employing the Odyssey network and the existing public switched telephone networks (PSTNs). Localities will be able to regulate Odyssey traffic via local "Gateways" connected to the Odyssey System.